Tag Archives: Margaret Talev

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Well, duh! Of course the new health care overhaul passed by Congress and signed by President Obama is confusing. Do you think the confusion comes because the bill clocked in over two thousand pages long? Not according to Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com:

McLean said the call center had been inundated by uninsured consumers who were hoping that the overhaul would translate into instant, affordable coverage. That widespread misconception may have originated in part from distorted rhetoric about the legislation bubbling up from the hyper-partisan debate about it in Washington and some media outlets, such as when opponents denounced it as socialism.

It’s not the size of the bill, but the “hyper-partisan debate” and calling it socialism that is confusing people. The news article isn’t clear whether that is something McLean actually stated, or if it is an editorial addition by the article writer, Margaret Talev. Based on the left-leaning nature of the print media, I guess it’s the latter.

Adults with pre-existing conditions are frustrated to learn that insurers won’t have to cover them until 2014 (though those under 18 will be protected in late September); then they become both hopeful and confused upon learning that a federal high-risk pool for them will be established in the next few months. “Health insurance is so confusing. You add this on top of it and it makes it even more confusing,” McLean said.

Free-market health care insurance should be no more confusing than buying tuna fish in the grocery store. You weigh the costs and benefits, and then you select the one that best suits your needs and wallet. When it’s not that simple, it’s not the free market; the government has stepped in and has meddled. That is exactly what has happened in the health care market for the past 70 years.

The solution is getting government meddling out of health care, but somehow government thinks that passing a multi-thousand page bill will fix it. Oh, yes, this time it will work, they tell us. Just like all the previous massive bills “fixed” health care before.